Description of Research Area

Collective Behaviors of Active Matters toward Understanding Tissue Dynamics

Research Subject

The internal structure of a cell is, although very complicated, captured by the assemblage of soft materials such as polymers, liquid crystals, and membranes, and is supported particularly by cytoskeleton consisting of filaments and molecular motors. At the individual level, a single cell spontaneously moves and deforms under a nonequilibrium state by consuming energy. How these two hierarchies result in macroscopic features of tissue as an assemblage of cells, and with the response to external mechanical stress and collective displacement of cells in the tissue. To give a generic insight on this problem, we analyze collective behaviors of spontaneously moving and deforming objects and simultaneously develop a theoretical model of cell motility. We believe mechanism of tissue dynamics would be captured by these studies.